Freelance
Traveller

V. Observations

Harrison Burman, Acting Able Spacehand, huddled down further in the solar
storm observatory. He was still afraid to open the hatch that lead back to
Sensors. As far as he knew, he was the only person in the section left
alive.

Examine Harrison: almost forty now, a middle-aged spread settling around
his middle, hair getting a little gray, probably from an overdose of cosmic
radiation. He is not a coward or even uncourageous; after all, he has spent
his entire adult life in space, where your first mistake is often your last.
But he is not a Navy man, not used to combat, and certainly not used to
seeing twenty lives snuffed out in a single instant.

Burman was a Scout, a member of the Imperial Service charged with
charting worlds and the spaceways. Seven centuries ago, when the Imperium
was still expanding, the Scout service was possibly more important than even
the Navy: it was the Scouts who would recontact worlds isolated from the
rest of human space for 1500 years, the Scouts who mapped the uncharted
regions beyond the old First and Second Imperiums. But now, with the
Imperium stable for the past several centuries, the Scout Service's primary
purpose is maintaining communications between worlds.

Harrison Burman was a sensor technician and computer programmer. He was
good a both jobs; and the Scout Service, with its survey ships and message
banks, had need of both his professions. Harrison liked the Scouts, liked
the informal nature of its field agents, where "Acting Supervisor" was the
most title anybody ever needed, liked working in the frontier regions of
space. For a while, he even had a job as the pilot of one of the little one
man scout/couriers that carried messages between the worlds; but he couldn't
get used to the weeks of loneliness, with no one to talk to but his
computer. He preferred working aboard the scout bases scattered throughout
the Imperium, charting and consolidating data in an orderly, comfortable
environment.

None of which, obviously, was preparation for battle.

The Imperium has trillions of citizens and thousands of worlds. Its
resources are nearly inexhaustible; but the nature of space travel and
communication strain its abilities to bring all of its resources to bear.
The Imperium responds to threats inexorably, but it may be years before a
local area receives assistance from the rest of the far-flung empire. Often,
they must make do with what they have for the duration of the crisis; for it
is not unusual for wars to end before the first reinforcements from the Core
regions arrive.

Thus it came to pass that the Navy, always in need of good programmers
and sensor techs, in the fourth year of the Fifth Frontier War transformed
Scout Harrison Burman, pay grade IS-5, into Acting Able Spacehand Harrison
Burman, Sensor Technician, Imperial Interstellar Star Ship Rhylanor.

Burman checked his suit's readouts. He had several more hours of air-then
what? Find a Zhodani and surrender? Take a sleeping pill and slumber into
asphyxiation? He shuddered.

Would the ship even be in orbit in a few hours?

That at least he could find out. He swung down into the seat of the solar
activity observatory. The stubby little turret-like extension of the hull,
at the end of a long, elbow shaped tunnel, was heavily shielded from
radiation, to allow a person to make first hand observations during a solar
storm. Rhylanor hadn't needed it since they had come so far outside
the main system.

The main computer was out, but the telescopes were still powered. He
began to nudge them into place. He could take some sightings of stars to
determine their position. Then, he might be able to see if they were getting
closer to the gas giant...there were other ways to determine the orbital
radius. At least he'd know if they were going to burn up in a few hours.

He had to keep pushing down the thought that it was the barest
coincidence that he was alive. If he hadn't been ordered into the
observatory -

It had been during the battle with the Zhodani ships. Several of
Rhylanor's sensors were out of action. Lieutenant Laragii had ordered
him to the observatory, whose heavily-shielded sensors were still
operational, to help coordinate sensor results. He had just shut the hatch
when a blinding white light had burst into the room and the radiation
sensors had gone off the scale -

Twenty people. The entire sensor section. He couldn't say that he had
been close to many of them, but so many at one stroke-What was this?

Centered in his scope was a Zhodani ship. But what kind? He couldn't tell
one from the other. He couldn't even tell how long it was...ah, but one of
Jasmine's small, rocky moons was beginning to drift behind it - Gamma, her
third satellite. He pulled out his handcomp and scribbled some figures.
Gamma's diameter was 400 km, her distance from Jasmine was...the scope's
magnification was set at...the formulas were all standard. Hmm. The ship
wasn't that big at all. Probably a destroyer. He attached a lead from his
computer to the telescope and recorded the image. Then he began to search.

He found five more ships, and recorded them all. The last was a bit of a
surprise: a captured Imperial Scout Survey craft, probably used as a
communications ship for the Zhodani fleet.

Burman leaned back against the side of the shaft that led down to the
observatory, strangely satisfied. He always took pleasure from a difficult
set of observations.

He felt a faint vibration through his helmet.

This whole region of the ship had been in vacuum since the Zhodani fusion
rocket had blasted a hole into sensors section. There was no air to carry
sound. But the floor could still carry vibrations.

Somebody was walking around above him.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. Who was it? A Zhodani? He might know
that Burman was there, the ex-Scout's own mind betraying him. But what if it
were an Imperial? This might be his only chance at rescue.

The only fighting chance he had was to take a look. If his mind had been
detected, he was already trapped.

He climbed each agonizing rung of the shaft to the iris hatch at the top
and pressed the button to open it. The hatch dilated, like the shutter of a
camera, and he poked his head up to floor level.

A figure was silhouetted against the murky bulk of Jasmine visible
through the jagged hole in the side of the ship, his back to Burman. It was
moving slowly as he watched, poking a long rifle into different corners of
the room. Debris was floating about; the ship's artificial gravity must have
failed in this area.

The figure's helmet was the form-fitting bug-eyed Zhodani type, not the
familiar swept-back style of Imperial combat armor.

Burman slowly hoisted himself out of the observatory shaft and activated
his magnetic soles. He hadn't been notice. This trooper must not be psionic.
But he was armed and Burman wasn't.

The figure paused by the breach in the hull. Burman considered for a
moment, then grabbed a computer pad that was floating near his head and
threw it at the Zhodani.

It sailed right past him and through the breach. The trooper, startled,
spun around. Burman was facing him, holding a crate of sensor components. He
threw it right at the Zhodani's chest.

It knocked the trooper straight through the hole in the wall and he
sailed out into space. Burman trudged carefully up to the breach and stared
out. The Zhodani was tumbling directly towards Jasmine.

As he watched, the trooper stopped tumbling and began to decelerate. He
was using his suit maneuver controls to slow himself down. Too late,
Burman's pride at having gotten rid of his opponent turned into despair.

The Zhodani would have a communicator. He could easily call for help.

Some one was pushing past Burman. He jumped aside, throwing his hands up
in surrender. The new figure was tall enough to be a Zhodani - no. He was
too well-built; Zhodani tend to be slender. And he was wearing Imperial
powered armor.

The Imperial raised a huge, ugly-looking weapon to his shoulder. He
fitted the butt into a socket on his suit.

The Zhodani had stopped moving and was hanging in space, watching them.

The Imperial fired. A bolt of white-hot plasma shot from the muzzle of
the weapon and struck the Zhodani, who seemed to fly apart.

The Imperial removed the gun from its socket. He turned and began to walk
for the door. It was all Burman could do to keep up.